Italy - Factors to watch on Sept. 7

Reuters has not verified the newspaper reports, and cannot vouch for their accuracy. New items are marked with (*).

For a complete list of diary events in Italy please click on .

ECONOMY

ISTAT releases July retail sales (0800 GMT) and monthly bulletin on the state of the economy in Augusty (0900 GMT).

DEBT

Italy’s Treasury conducts a debt buyback.

Treasury announces sale of 12-month BOT bills, with relative amounts to be auctioned on Sept. 12.

INSURERS

Fitch Ratings on Thursday revised its outlook on nine insurance groups to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’ following a similar move on Italy’s sovereign rating.

ASSICURAZIONI GENERALI

The insurer said on Thursday it had entered exclusive talks to buy a majority stake in French asset manager Sycomore and develop a partnership in line with its multi-boutique strategy in asset management.

Fitch said Generali’s ratings would likely be downgraded if it cut Italy’s sovereign rating or if the insurer’s exposure to Italian bonds increased materially. However, a one-notch sovereign downgrade may not directly affect Generali’s subordinated debt ratings.

(*) TELECOM ITALIA

The group started the process to sell its unit Sparkle on Monday and is waiting for banks’ expression of interests on Friday, daily Il Corriere said. The group will hold a board meeting on Sept. 10, to discuss tender for 5G, and one on Sept. 24. At Sept. 24 there could be a showdown on the group’s CEO, the daily said.

(*) ATLANTIA

The CEO of Autostrade per l’Italia and Atlantia told Italian daily La Stampa on Friday that he felt responsible, but not guilty, for the deadly collapse of a motorway bridge operated by Autostrade.

(*) ATLANTIA, TELECOM ITALIA, MEDIASET , CAIRO COMMUNICATIONS

Italy will review concessions on the management of water, television and telecom, besides that for Autostrade per l’Italia to manage part of its motorways, the deputy prime minister told the newspaper Il Corriere.

(*) BANCA CARIGE

Bank’s investor Raffaele Mincione told daily Il Messaggero that the lender needed to boost its capital base before a tie-up, adding the issuance of a subordinated bond worth more than 150 million euros and assets disposals could solve the problem.

(*) ANSALDO STS

Greece’s state-owned subway operator, Attiko Metro, has short-listed three interested groups of contractors in a tender for a 1.5 billion euro expansion project, it said late Thursday.